All of the strains in FLiRT are descended from the Omicron variant’s JN.1 variant. A few months ago, the JN.1 variant quickly spread worldwide, causing the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore in December of last year. Specifically, the KP.2 strain spreads faster than the KP.1 strain.
The World Health Organisation designated KP.2 as a Variant Under Monitoring in May. This notifies public health authorities that monitoring and attention to a COVID-19 variant may need to be prioritized.Early in January, KP.2 was discovered for the first time in India.
Although KP.2 is the predominant variant, the US CDC reported on May 16 that it isn’t producing a more severe illness than other variants.
Similar to this, Singapore’s Health Ministry stated on May 18 that there isn’t any evidence at this time to suggest that KP.1 and KP.2 are more contagious or cause more serious illness than other circulating variants.
According to Dr. David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University cited by the New York Times, KP.2 may be slightly more contagious than JN.1 and may be better at eluding our immune systems due to slight variations in its spike protein.
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